English-born musician and producer Example has struck out on his own, throwing off the shackles being signed to a major label and going back to doing what he wants.
Now living in sunny Brisbane with his wife and family, Example is walking the path of an independent artist. This past year has seen him release a song every month as well as perform at the Gold Coast 600.
Example brings his banging party vibes to Harbour Party NYE, and we catch up with him to check-in on 2019 and what's coming up next for him.
You recently performed at the Gold Coast 600 – do you consider yourself a revhead at all?
In England I think that’s a petrolhead innit? Ah yeah, I absolutely love my motors, over the years I’ve been lucky enough to own Ferrari, Lamborghini, Range Rover, a Maclaren and a Porsche, but I’ve swapped it all now for a family life in Brisbane.
Also the weather here, the hills and the speed cameras aren’t really conducive to owning a supercar anymore. So I sold everything back in the UK and now I drive a Volkswagen. Hope that’s not too boring.
Speaking of car races, what's the fastest you've gotten to the Gold Coast from Brisbane (or vice versa) along the Pacific Motorway?
I’m not really sure, it’s about speeding is it? I’d say an hour.
You've recently found yourself out of the shadow of major labels – what impact has that independence had on your creative output?
The best thing now is I just put out whatever I want; whatever songs I want, whatever videos I want, whatever artwork I want, I can put it out any time of the year.
It’s great because you put out a song you love and you get the feedback direct from the DJs and in the clubs, which I have always had but I don’t necessarily have to worry about whether I am on radio or not, how many streams it can get on Spotify and Apple Music. So it’s good because I obviously have ambitions, but I don’t really set myself any particular targets.
If I love the song, I enjoy performing it and my core fan base enjoy and if I myself are picking up new fans – like the last single, we had a lot of comments on YouTube and Instagram videos from people in Mexico and Argentina – it's nice to see the development there.
What do you want to achieve as an independent artist that you weren't able to when signed to a major?
Again, I think it’s more consistency in being able to have a vision but also being able to change your mind at the last minute.
Major labels and what I found quite frustrating because I might record 70-80 songs in a year, and they overthink it sometimes – you know sometimes one or two songs was never enough for them. Nothing was ever right, instead of going with their gut feeling and almost being this is a great song, let’s just stick it out because we love it – they’ll often be like 'I wonder if radio are ever going to play it, I wonder if it’s going to be a hit, I wonder if etc. etc.'.
So now it’s been great setting up my own label and having full control.
Did you enjoy the response to your 'Bangers & Ballads' mixtape?
Around six out of the nine songs I had sitting around for three years and the label didn’t want to put these out – this was my way of getting out the frustration and you know like being able to put out exactly what I wanted.
The fans reacted really well to it; ‘Show Me How To Love’ was the standout track from that and you know that’s doing really well – I think it’s almost at 15 million streams and 10 million views now.
You've also set yourself the challenge of releasing a song a month this year – what have been some of the benefits of this process?
The song a month thing, last year I think I did ten songs, eight of which were features in 2018. This year I would’ve done seven songs, three of which have been features. 'All Night' was massive for me, 'Click' was huge when that came out this year. I did another collaboration called '24' with a tech-house DJ called Jackie, and then my last song of the year is going to be called ‘Do It So Well’, which is out in a few weeks.
How has married life and fatherhood changed who you are as an artist?
I don’t know if it has really. I think the only thing it does maybe is when you’re writing songs from the heart ('cause I’ve only ever written songs about my personal experiences) all my biggest hits in 2010, 2011, 2012 were pretty much about being in broken relationships, or dealing with addiction or yakno falling in out of love.
So that was, yakno, songs from the heart, 'Kickstart', 'Chains Away', 'Kiss Me', 'Stay Awake' were all about those sort of things, so for me, now, I found recently over the last year that a lot of people don’t always want to hear songs about being happy. So it’s about me trying to be clever with it and put a new twist on it, so you’re not just writing the same old love song all the time.
It’s about thinking about ways of writing a song about fatherhood without mentioning the word dad or son; it’s a bit more of a challenge.
Someone naughty you think deserves a lump of coal for Christmas?
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
We’re heading to your place for Christmas dinner – what’s on the menu and how shall we be entertained?
I’m the cook in our house, I cook everyday; sometimes omelettes for breakfast and salads for lunch, and in the evening homemade burgers, or a like do a curry, a Thai curry, or I did a taco party at the weekend and cooked for 20 people.
Christmas Day I’m not really a traditionalist in the heat over here in Australia; I tend to go for meat and salad, rather than like a roast stuffed turkey or a duck (which seems to be popular in England at the moment), or goose. And entertainment would probably just be music and swimming pool. And just family, catching up.
Any plans for an Example Christmas album, ever?
No chance ever.
Can you think of a better way to end the year than performing at Harbour Party NYE?
No, because I was lucky enough to spend New Year’s Eve in Sydney in 2003 and it was probably one of the greatest nights of my life – it made me fall in love with Sydney, it made me fall in love with this country.
Now I am obviously living here, I’m married to an Australian, I’ve got two kids who are very happy here, for me the best city in the world on New Year’s Eve is Sydney and being able to perform on the harbour is just a dream come true.
The best thing now is I just put out whatever I want; whatever songs I want, whatever videos I want, whatever artwork I want, I can put it out any time of the year.
It’s great because you put out a song you love and you get the feedback direct from the DJs and in the clubs, which I have always had but I don’t necessarily have to worry about whether I am on radio or not, how many streams it can get on Spotify and Apple Music. So it’s good because I obviously have ambitions, but I don’t really set myself any particular targets.
If I love the song, I enjoy performing it and my core fan base enjoy and if I myself are picking up new fans – like the last single, we had a lot of comments on YouTube and Instagram videos from people in Mexico and Argentina – it's nice to see the development there.
What do you want to achieve as an independent artist that you weren't able to when signed to a major?
Again, I think it’s more consistency in being able to have a vision but also being able to change your mind at the last minute.
Major labels and what I found quite frustrating because I might record 70-80 songs in a year, and they overthink it sometimes – you know sometimes one or two songs was never enough for them. Nothing was ever right, instead of going with their gut feeling and almost being this is a great song, let’s just stick it out because we love it – they’ll often be like 'I wonder if radio are ever going to play it, I wonder if it’s going to be a hit, I wonder if etc. etc.'.
So now it’s been great setting up my own label and having full control.
Did you enjoy the response to your 'Bangers & Ballads' mixtape?
Around six out of the nine songs I had sitting around for three years and the label didn’t want to put these out – this was my way of getting out the frustration and you know like being able to put out exactly what I wanted.
The fans reacted really well to it; ‘Show Me How To Love’ was the standout track from that and you know that’s doing really well – I think it’s almost at 15 million streams and 10 million views now.
You've also set yourself the challenge of releasing a song a month this year – what have been some of the benefits of this process?
The song a month thing, last year I think I did ten songs, eight of which were features in 2018. This year I would’ve done seven songs, three of which have been features. 'All Night' was massive for me, 'Click' was huge when that came out this year. I did another collaboration called '24' with a tech-house DJ called Jackie, and then my last song of the year is going to be called ‘Do It So Well’, which is out in a few weeks.
How has married life and fatherhood changed who you are as an artist?
I don’t know if it has really. I think the only thing it does maybe is when you’re writing songs from the heart ('cause I’ve only ever written songs about my personal experiences) all my biggest hits in 2010, 2011, 2012 were pretty much about being in broken relationships, or dealing with addiction or yakno falling in out of love.
So that was, yakno, songs from the heart, 'Kickstart', 'Chains Away', 'Kiss Me', 'Stay Awake' were all about those sort of things, so for me, now, I found recently over the last year that a lot of people don’t always want to hear songs about being happy. So it’s about me trying to be clever with it and put a new twist on it, so you’re not just writing the same old love song all the time.
It’s about thinking about ways of writing a song about fatherhood without mentioning the word dad or son; it’s a bit more of a challenge.
Someone naughty you think deserves a lump of coal for Christmas?
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
We’re heading to your place for Christmas dinner – what’s on the menu and how shall we be entertained?
I’m the cook in our house, I cook everyday; sometimes omelettes for breakfast and salads for lunch, and in the evening homemade burgers, or a like do a curry, a Thai curry, or I did a taco party at the weekend and cooked for 20 people.
Christmas Day I’m not really a traditionalist in the heat over here in Australia; I tend to go for meat and salad, rather than like a roast stuffed turkey or a duck (which seems to be popular in England at the moment), or goose. And entertainment would probably just be music and swimming pool. And just family, catching up.
Any plans for an Example Christmas album, ever?
No chance ever.
Can you think of a better way to end the year than performing at Harbour Party NYE?
No, because I was lucky enough to spend New Year’s Eve in Sydney in 2003 and it was probably one of the greatest nights of my life – it made me fall in love with Sydney, it made me fall in love with this country.
Now I am obviously living here, I’m married to an Australian, I’ve got two kids who are very happy here, for me the best city in the world on New Year’s Eve is Sydney and being able to perform on the harbour is just a dream come true.
What are your plans for 2020 ie. new music, touring etc.?
2020 – I’ve got a UK tour February/ March (UK and Ireland), then I come back to Australia for a bit, do some Asia dates (eight gigs). And then April/ May I’m doing about ten more shows in Australia/ New Zealand, which I’m announcing soon.
End of January I’m playing the Australian Open Live, and then from June to August I’ll be back in the UK doing the festival circuit over there. But yeah, always new music coming.
